Fitness Friday – Fitting in Exercise

It’s so hard to fit exercise into our routines. Something always seems to come up. Like on Monday. I’ve been eating lunch about 11:00 to 11:30 at my desk, then going to exercise at the gym at about 1:30 or so. But on Monday, the day got crazy. I had to work right through my exercise time because I was trying to find out where the truck was that had my customer’s shipment. I had to sit here waiting on phone calls and emails. By 4:00, there wasn’t much sense in going because my office would have been closed when I got back. So I’ve started exercising after work. The biggest problem with that is my car wants so badly to point toward home after a hard day at the office. And this time of year, they are all hard days. Plus, my feet seem to hurt worse this time of day. What to do??? I’ve just got to find the best time to exercise and do it. And maybe be flexible enough so that I don’t HAVE to do it the same time every day. What do YOU do for exercise, and when?

It’s exactly that kind of thing that has me embracing the mini workout. Bursts of 5, 10, or 15 minutes of activity, whether that’s at home during lunch, or during my morning and afternoon breaks at work (other people take smoke breaks, I exercise). It’s not usually enough to get me gross and sweaty, but enough to get my heartrate up a few minutes. It’s not a giant calorie burn but it IS a burn and it ADDS UP.

That might work for me. Even if it’s just walking a lot faster on the treadmill and doing bursts of running. So far, I’ve only been able to do two 60 second bursts of running, but I’m trying to work up to more.

I do my workouts in the morning, but I don’t work til ten AM or later, so it’s easier for me to squeeze it in. I’d say you’re doing a great job getting it in though, 13 lbs. WOOT! My problem is weekends, just don’t wanna workout on weekends. Hey look it’s the weekend, yeah no workouts!

You SO get a sticker. I have about 100 that are silver foil and say signed by the author–they may or may not contain small pieces of red fuzz… Oh was that not the kind of sticker you were wanting for a reward? LOL

I have RA (rheumatoid arthritis) so running/jogging, lifting weights, lunges, squats anything that puts a lot of strain on joints is out for me because I physically cannot move the next day. It’s hard enough as it is, but heavy-impact exercises makes it even worse. So I have to go with low-impact and recently bought a fitness trampoline from JumpSport or something like that. Anyway, it came with a DVD with 4 different workouts all ranging from 15 to 30 minutes, with the most “calorie burning” (cardio) being only 20 minutes long. Really, 20 minutes is doable (at least for me) right after the kids go to bed. Because you’re not really jumping onto the ground each time, it isn’t so bad on the tired feet (plus, it’s fun. I’ll admit it, I like jumping up and down on the darn thing.)

Just passing on a suggestion someone gave me–you might want to find somewhere else to eat and not at your desk. I was in an awful habit of bringing my lunch to my desk and eating while writing or vice versa and bringing my laptop down to the kitchen table. But when you eat while multitasking, you’re likely to not only eat more because you’re not realizing how much you’re eating, but also training yourself to think about food (or making it acceptable to eat when you shouldn’t be) while sitting at that desk. Instead, if you go to a place you’ve designate as where you take your meals, and leave behind the work/computers, then you’re more likely to realize when you’re really full and not be as tempted to eat in between meals because when you’re at your desk, you know you’re there to work only because eating happens over in that other room. (Sorry, that’s not very clear, but I hope you get the idea.)

I have some arthritis in my hands, but it’s osteo instead of rheumatoid. That’s why I can’t write for a long time. My mom has rheumatoid, but when she loses weight, the pain diminishes considerably.

When I’m eating at my desk, I’m at work. There’s nowhere else at work to eat. But I can only eat what I bring, so that will limit my intake. Now, if I was at home, I would definitely not eat at my desk.

Oh my gosh, you definitely get a sticker! 🙂 I’m only thinking about exercising. You’re actually doing it. I’m a sucker for routine too, but maybe mixing it up a bit time-wise won’t be a bad thing. After a long day it’s hard to get going though…I’m with you on that. Good luck to you! If I had any experience in this area I’d share, but you’re inspiring me!

I played around with eating habits and exercise, but I didn’t really get serious until the diabetes diagnosis. So it was do this or have major health problems. Sometimes you have to get scared to make yourself act.

I’m glad I can inspire you. Once it all gets to be a habit, it’s a lot easier.